Another successful Christmas!

As a fabulous Christmas weekend comes to a close,  I am finally making the time to blog!!  We finished our Christmas shopping at exactly 4:19 pm on Christmas Eve.  Disgraceful, I know!!  But it all worked out and a great Christmas was had by all the Earleys.  Top gifts received include:

 Lindsay:
Pillow pet
Baby Alive
Elephant & Piggie books


Paige:
Sticker maker
My Little Pony ferris wheel
TAG Reader (Leapfrog)

Natalie:
Diapers
Formula
Binkies!!

Mommy:
Coffee Maker!!
Scentsy warmer
Eagles stuff

Daddy
Eagles stuff
Basketball shorts

Christmas Traditions

I love all the fun Christmas traditions this time of year!  Here's what we have planned for the holiday season!

• Advent calendar with chocolate pieces - We've gotten this from Trader Joe's the past few years.  The girls love finding the box that has the day's number on it (they are not in order) and then seeing what Christmas picture is on the chocolate.  (and they love eating it, of course!)
• Elf on the Shelf - our elf has been back for a few days now.  So far he's hidden on the bookcase, on the ceiling fan, and in the Barbie car on top of the fridge, among other places.
• Reading Christmas stories every night - we have enough winter/Christmas books to read that we can do one every night in December!
• Drive around to see Christmas lights
• Hayride at Linvilla to cut down our own tree - we did this last year and it was a blast!  Thank you Mom-Mom for allowing us to do it again this year!  :)
• Pictures with Santa
• Christmas specials on TV - we have watched Rudolph and Frosty so far.  I still want to watch the Grinch and Charlie Brown.
• Christmas Eve at Aunt Theresa's - returning this year - yay!
• Making cookies/gingerbread houses?  - I'd like to do this but not promising anything!
• Paige really wants to make some ornaments so I'm doing some research on this one.  

And of course, put up the Christmas decorations!  We put up the big blow-up Santa in the yard last night.  

Seven Weeks

Natalie is seven weeks old! She has started smiling in the past week or so. About a week ago I thought I caught one but we weren't entirely sure if it was a real smile or not. I saw one or two more over the course of the week, but today she probably smiled about 5 times! The next task is to get one on camera!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

We had both girls' parent/teacher conferences last week. Just have to brag on them a little bit. :)

Paige: Her teacher said she is doing great and is very smart. She's one of the kids considered more 'ahead'. She is one of the older ones in the class, so this is not a surprise. On her little progress report she did get one area for development - paying attention/not talking during circle time. I thought this was pretty funny. And it explains why she asked me a few weeks ago "Mommy, why did Miss Karen say she was going to separate Mary and me? What does that mean?" Hehe.

Lindsay: Could not have gotten a more glowing report from her teacher, who claims Lindsay is one of her favorites. :) Her teacher said she always has a positive, enthusiastic attitude and is a good role model for the other kids. Wow! She was also assessed as being ahead in Math with 3 others in her class and will be getting 'math enrichment' activities. A child who likes math!!! Yeahhhh!!!!

I am super proud of my girls and hope they continue to love school and learning!

One Month

Natalie had her one month visit on Monday!  She weighed in at 9 lbs. 3oz.  - she is definitely losing that brand new baby look.  I am sooo happy that she is healthy and that we have managed to avoid any illnesses for these first 5.5 weeks!

Paige-isms

Just wanted to record some funny things that Paige said today. 

I was in the kitchen and heard the sounds of the two of them fighting in the living room(as usual).  Before I had a chance to intervene, I hear Paige say " fine then I'm just going to punch you in the head" to Lindsay.  LOL!  I tried to help clear the air but she was really grumpy and mad.  So I said to her, "I think you should go lay on the couch until you cool off", and she replied, "Mommy, I'm not sweaty!"

I couldn't stay mad after that.  :)

Milestone

Two days ago Lindsay started tying shoelaces!  She is just over the moon with excitement and pride.  Yesterday as soon as she got home from school she changed her clothes and put on a pair of pajama shorts just because they had a drawstring she could tie.  It was so cute.  I had just been thinking that I really needed to work on this with her.  Unfortunately, all her shoes are velcro - so she is DYING now for a pair of shoes that have laces.  I told her maybe for Christmas.....any takers??  :)

Halloween

This is a little late but I just got the pictures downloaded yesterday!  I was a bit worried about Halloween costumes this year because new ones were definitely NOT in the budget.  Luckily, when I asked Paige what she wanted to be, she immediately replied Cinderella!!  As luck would have it, we have a Cinderella costume already in our dress up box.  Score!  However, everything is the dress-up box is basically too small for Lindsay at this point.  Then one day I saw some leftover white gauzy type material laying around that looked a lot like a VEIL...and it got me thinking that, paired with her flower girl dress from Melissa's wedding, we had the perfect bride costume!  Luck was on my side this year because Lindsay liked the idea when I suggested it to her.  Whew!  Crisis averted!

A big thank you to Aunt Melissa for sewing the material on to Lindsay's headband!!  :)

And of course, Natalie had to wear the hand me down Tigger costume!!  If I can find the time (yeah, right) I will go back and try to post side by side pictures of all three of them in their first Halloween Tigger outfit!

Sleepless night and Library fun

I slept for about 2-3 hours last night....ughhhhhh....so tired I can barely think!  Not sure why Natalie was so restless.  Maybe a growth spurt?  Or possibly she isn't yet used to sleeping flat in her crib?  During the day she sleeps a lot in her bouncy seat.  Gas?  Reflux??   If only she could talk!  Oh well..until then, we play the guessing game.  Meanwhile Chris and I are zombies today.

So of course today would be the day I was scheduled to volunteer in the school library during Lindsay's class time.  If you know me, you know how excited I was to sign up to help in the library!!  But when this morning rolled around I was so tired I wanted to cry at the thought of going.  But Lindsay was sooo excited - no WAY was I not going to show up.  The good part - it forced me to get dressed in 'real' clothes for the first time since I had Natalie - and I was happy to find that I could fit into my baggy jeans!  (they aren't exactly baggy now, but still!!)  Afterwards I was glad I did it.  It was so cute to see her with her classmates looking for books in the library, and to put faces to some of the names she mentions.  Then I read her class 3 stories at the end of the period!!  How fun!!  A little intimidating, actually, a class of 17 kids looking at you and waiting to hear you read.  According to Lindsay I did just fine.  :)

Here's hoping for at least 4 hours of sleep tonight....

3 weeks

I can't believe it - Natalie is 3 weeks old!! It feels like a lifetime! I will try and give a quick recap of how things are going.

We came home from the hospital on the 12th. Of course we had to make sure we got the traditional 'coming home' photo in the carseat!


Lindsay and Paige are so excited to have her home and they are really great with her. Of course we have to remind them sometimes to be careful, but really they are very gentle and careful with her most of the time.

Natalie has already been to the pediatrician twice and appears to be gaining weight nicely - yay! We will go back at one month for her next check-up (and probably first round of shots - boo). I am psyched that we have made it to 3 weeks without her getting sick - I had been holding my breath until we passed the point where Paige got sick (2 weeks).

At one week old:














2 weeks:















Pictures at 3 weeks are not downloaded yet, of course. Here's one of the birthday girl instead. :)

Happy Due Date!

Today is my due date!! I can't imagine still being pregnant!!!! Natalie will be 3 weeks old tomorrow - where in the world has the time gone??

Birth Story - Part II

Around 2:30 am I woke up to go to the bathroom - which was a nightly occurrence by this late in the pregnancy! I shuffled to the bathroom without even fully waking up, which, on a normal night, made it easier for me to go back to sleep. However, tonight it caused me to almost miss the fact that it appeared my water had broken! Although my gut feeling told me that's what it was, I really wasn't sure (no, it wasn't the typical gush you hear about in the movies!) so I laid back down in bed, not really sure what to do. About 15 minutes later some relatively painful contractions started up. I decided after about 20 minutes that they were coming frequently enough that I should time them, especially if my water had broken. 45 minutes later, I was waking Chris up to let him know I needed to call the doctor - they were coming regularly and were getting more painful. Now it was around 4 am.

In a stroke of luck, the McKenney's were staying with us after coming down for Paige's party. (Mike also predicted me having the baby at 4 am that night - kind of freaky). I felt bad but I finally had to admit that we needed to go to the hospital and woke Lori up to tell her. She was super excited. :) So off to the hospital we go!

Painful contractions continue on the way to the hospital. We arrived there around 4:30. Got checked sometime within that first half hour and it was determined that my water HAD broken and I was 4 cm dilated - I was staying and we were going to have a baby. OMG!!

The next 2-3 hours are a blur and I can only approximate the timeline. By around 6 am I was 7 cm dilated. (still no epidural, OUCH!!) Sometime during the next hour I got my epidural, which only half worked (OUCH!!!!) Around 7 am I started pushing. She was posterior (face up) which slowed down the process a bit, but by 7:29 am our little Natalie was born!! She cried right away and it was amazing! No pictures from immediately after, but here are some of the early ones (we hadn't thought to bring our camera in all the confusion).

THE Story

Ok, so I promised that next post would be birth story, so here goes:

To go back to the VERY beginning, I need to go back a few weeks to late September, when I was around 35 weeks. We were scheduled to go up to Mechanicsburg that weekend for Katie's birthday. Saturday started normally - we went up to watch Lindsay's soccer game - nothing unusual was happening. On the way home from the game, out of nowhere I started feeling very crampy. After a few minutes I realized that I was having some mildly painful contractions. Not a huge deal, except that we were supposed to be going somewhere 2 hours away from our house. After some discussion, we decided to hang around until the contractions stopped just to be safe. Well, four hours later they were just starting to taper off. At this point, even though they stopped, I didn't feel safe being 2 hours away from he hospital, so we canned our trip to Mechanicsburg.

Fast-forward to my 36 week appointment, where I was SURE that I had to be making some progress based on this and just a general crampiness. NOPE - still closed - nothing. I was a bit disappointed, even though part of me was happy that she wouldn't be coming quite so early - I really didn't want a baby in the NICU!

The following week I didn't have much in the way of contractions, so I wasn't too hopefuly that much had changed at my 37 week appointment. But voila! Now I am 1-2 centimeters dilated, 50% effaced and a -2 station. Sweet! I know that this didn't necessarily mean that labor was imminent but any sign that my body was getting ready to get this baby OUT was a good thing.

We had Paige's birthday party on Saturday the 9th. I was feeling tired and a little bit nauseous that day, but wrote it off to being stressed about the party. I did a ton of cleaning and running around. The party went off without a hitch and Paige had a great time. I stayed up late talking to Lori and headed to bed around 1 am.

To be continued....

Natalie Grace

Natalie Grace arrived on 10/10/10! I figured this was important enough to get the blog rolling again. :) I changed the background to be more fitting of our three little ladies.

Anyway - Pretty cool birth date! She was 3 weeks early so we never expected to have her that day. Stats:

7 lbs. 7 oz.
21 inches

Next post - birth story and pics!